Title: Large-scale installations as focal points for innovation networks

Authors: Marco Malacarne

Addresses: Commission of the European Communities, Directorate-General for Science, Research and Development, Directorate for 'Human Capital and Mobility', (XII-G-2: 'Networks and Large Installations'), Rue de la Loi 200, 1049 Brussels, Belgium

Abstract: Large-scale installations play an important role in the interaction between basic research and industry in Europe, because of the technological complexity and multidisciplinarity that they have introduced in the world of basic research itself. Large installations have a significant capability to meet their own technological problems with the skills of their own scientific staff. The need to focus on the specific scientific tasks for which installations are created, though, acts as a strong disincentive to pursue hi-tech innovations per se and to further exploit them. The relatively weak institutional links with the industrial world, moreover, make it even harder for large installations to diffuse their own technological know-how. Nonetheless, large installations can act as catalysts for technological innovation and can directly contribute to it. The article also reviews some Community actions to improve the economic evaluation of the technological potential of large installations and to facilitate their use by European researchers.

Keywords: innovation networks; large-scale installations; research-industry relations; technology transfer; economic evaluation; technological potential; R&D; research and development; Europe; industrial collaboration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.1995.025642

International Journal of Technology Management, 1995 Vol.10 No.4/5/6, pp.557 - 566

Published online: 23 May 2009 *

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